Accidents and SafetyCrime & SecurityOPINION: Secrecy and Conspiracy Theories Surround Nigerian Plane Crashes

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By John Campbell, Guest Columnist and Blogger

 

The plane crash May 21 killing Chief of Army Staff General Ibrahim Attahiru and all passengers and crew aboard is the fourth air tragedy in the past five months involving Nigeria Air Force aircraft. Initially, few details on the most recent crash were released, allowing conspiracy theories and falsely claimed videos of the crash to emerge on social media. The opposition Peoples Democratic Party caucus in the National Assembly called for a thorough investigation of the crash that killed Attahiru, while the Christian Association of Nigeria asked President Buhari to declare military plane crashes a national emergency. General Attahiru was buried on May 22, following Muslim customs.

While tragic, the cause of this latest crash appears to be straightforward. The general was flying to Kaduna to attend the Passing Out Parade on May 22 at the Nigerian Defense Academy. The plane was to have landed at a Nigerian Air Force facility but was diverted to the civilian Kaduna International Airport, where it crashed because of weather.

With the Nigerian government’s penchant for secrecy about bad news, details about plane crashes are slow to come, giving space for conspiracy theories. This time, it is to be hoped that the quick release of the details of the crash will forestall the rumor mill.

General Attahiru was made chief of army staff—in effect the most powerful military position—by President Muhammadu Buhari as part of his January 2021 shake-up of the military’s top brass in the face of the rapid deterioration of security around the country. Attahiru’s death is a setback for the Buhari government’s flagging efforts to curb insecurity in Nigeria.

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John Campbell is the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. He was a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria. He writes the blog Africa in Transition.  This article first appeared in CFR.

Nolan Quinn contributed to this post.

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